Saturn: A story of adoption success in Thailand
It is very common in Thailand for dogs to get abandoned because there are just so many strays and so many people that don't seem to understand or care about the importance of sterilization in dogs and cats. In the case of this dog, he was discovered at a bus station sala on the side of the road along with 2 siblings. Thankfully, a concerned passenger waiting for her bus knew about us and contacted us to help out.
At first we were hopeful that a mother was nearby and that they were just patiently waiting for her to come back and stayed there because people come by every now and then to give them and the mum some thing to eat. This is quite common with street dogs in Thailand but the tragedy of this situation was that after several days of monitoring, it was evident that mom, wherever she was, was not coming back. We suspect that the dogs were dropped here by the owners who hoped that someone else would see them and take them in. Unfortunately, in Thailand, outside of volunteer groups like our own, there is no official service for animal control or re-homing of animals and the unofficial animal control in Thailand merely culls dogs that become problematic.
After seeing that nobody was coming to get these dogs after several days, we removed them and took them to our compound for medical care and a bit of hope that someone out there would want these cute little lovelies to be part of their lives.
This story doesn't have a perfectly happy ending, but it is better than most. We were able to find a forever home for just one of the siblings and while we do not like to break up families, the alternative was that none of them would get adopted, so one of the dogs, who was named Saturn by the adopters, got to go to his new home in Nakkon Sri Thammarat where he got to sleep in a bed for the first time in his life.
While I am sure this was a bit of a rough transition for Saturn, there is no denying that he was going to live a much better life with this caring family than he was ever going to experience on the streets. You see, we cannot just take in all the dogs in Krabi, we do not have the space or the resources. When we picked up Saturn and his siblings, it was always going to be temporary. We have to treat them for potential illness, sterilize the females, and then put them back where we found them if they are not adopted quite quickly. We then monitor them and continue to hope that someone will adopt them.
Unfortunately adoptions out of Thailand are at a low as far as international adoptions are concerned and much of this has to do with politics that I don't care to get into. Let's just say that some governments of the world started being jerks and our "gravy train" of getting dogs to new homes has been cut off.
But we need to celebrate our small victories and in the case of Saturn, he went from being a dog on the side of the road that was counting on bus station waiters being kind enough to give him a scrap or two, to a dog that has a home, a bed, reliable food, medical care, and a lifetime of love. It would have been nice if we could have done the same for his siblings and if I had unlimited money I think I speak for everyone at Krabi Animal Welfare when I say that we would do it for all of them.
As for his siblings? Well unfortunately I don't know exactly what happened to them. We monitored the bus stop and made sure they had enough to eat and then one day we returned to check up on them again and they were no longer there. We checked back a number of other times but they are gone. I can only hope and pray that this means that some good Samaritan came by and took them to their place. I like to think that is exactly what happened.
Saturn is in a wonderful place now and so he will remain for the rest of his days. We are thankful to the family that took him on not just for agreeing to the task, but also for sending us a few pictures to let us know how great his life is now.
Keep this in mind if you are ever thinking of buying a designer dog: There are, at any given point in time, hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of rescue dogs and cats out there in the world right now. You could be the difference between that dog struggling for scraps and a safe place to sleep, and having a life of love an happiness on a pillow or even on a mat outside your front door. Every little bit of kindness that you put out will be returned by these animals many times over, that much is for sure.
If you would like to see how you can help out or simply spread the word, please visit our website at
http://krabianimalwelfare.org
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